


Put Up Your Head

by Jenwryn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-11
Updated: 2012-04-11
Packaged: 2017-11-03 10:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean has never been good at better.</p><p>(Vague, vague spoilers up to and including 7.17, depending on how strict you are.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Put Up Your Head

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stripedtabby](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=stripedtabby).
  * Inspired by [Borderline [Fanvid]](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/7804) by lola. 



> For Cat, because she encourages me to keep trying. Inspired by [dailyprompt](http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/)'s "celestial clouds" theme and Lola's beautiful ["Borderline" fanvid](http://lola.dreamwidth.org/83629.html?view=91821).

“Heaven”, says Cas, and Dean doesn't put his beer down but he does lower it a little, and turn, and look at him. So much has happened – angels and demons and leviathans and brothers – but they don't exactly discuss it. And it's a long time, a really long time, since Dean has heard that word used in any context other than the prayers and the curses that make up their daily trade.

And so he turns, and so he looks. 

Cas is looking right back, which is almost as unexpected. Though they talk and work and hunt together, it is a jolt to see that shade of blue full upon him: considering him, weighing him. Sammy always had said that communication was more than just speaking.

“Heaven?” asks Dean.

Cas nods. Cas takes a sip of his own beer. The can is pale in the evening light, condensation gleaming where his hand hasn’t rubbed it clear. He doesn’t speak. Maybe this is all the conversation they’re going to have. Maybe this is all the unnecessary words for the week, all the words that aren’t about work or food or dull survival. Maybe it’s enough, though, that later, tonight, or in the morning, or whenever it is that they both give in and sleep, Dean will be able to roll over and slip his arms around the man beside him. Be able to feel the warmth of him, the shape of him, there and real and honest. Maybe. 

Cas shifts his face a little, focussing far beside Dean. He raises a hand, and points. “Sometimes, I think of it,” he says, finding words, slowly, old-school style. “Sometimes. Like this. Here, clouds over the desert.”

It would be better, really, if they didn’t travel together. If they didn’t live together. Lie together. It would be better, if they kept their distance, if they only met whenever whatever it is, that makes things happen, chose to bring them together: serendipity, fate, bad luck, best luck. It would be better, to see each other’s faces after months of separation and to feel a shot of – to feel a shot of something, something other than the sheet of pain that numbs Dean’s chest, as he looks at the sunset, bled pink and gold; the sunset, bleeding the land into pastels, bleeding Cas’s face into softness. 

Dean has never been good at better. 

“Do you miss it, still?” he asks, which is a stupid question, which is up there with the stupidest questions, but he’s allowed. It’s his right, to be stupid, when it comes to the man-not-man-only-man at his side. Also, he can relate. Dean misses things too. He knows what it’s like. He feels the absence of the only other people he’s ever cared about. The only other person. Empty, in portions. He sips his beer. It’s still cold against his hand. 

“Sometimes,” says Cas. “Some things. I miss the light, the way it slanted and coloured. I miss...” he trails off. Perhaps there are too many things he misses. Perhaps there are not enough. Perhaps he doesn’t miss them the way he thinks he ought to, like Dean with his father, like Dean with the mother he barely knew. Perhaps he feels guilty. 

Perhaps he doesn’t.

“Sometimes I don’t,” Cas adds, and Dean isn’t even sure what he’s talking about. The words they’ve spoken, or the words he’s thought. He slides a little closer, metal of the Impala cooling at the small of his back. 

They are puzzles, the both of them, and half the pieces are missing. Simple puzzles, the kind a baby could do, but that doesn’t help, when the pieces are gone. 

The sun slips lower, and they drink their beer, and Cas is warm against him, and they shouldn’t be together, since they’ve broken each other, mended, and broken again, but what else is there, but the pain you know best.


End file.
